


Get Some Rest

by tshend



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Achilles is an athlete, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beaches, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Patroclus and Briseis are med students, Studying, uhhh idk not a lot happens in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tshend/pseuds/tshend
Summary: It must be golden hour, thinks Patroclus, as he watches the rays of the setting sun stroke over Achilles’ face. The face that is currently looking concerned and Patroclus wants to lean over and smooth out Achilles’ brow.





	Get Some Rest

**Author's Note:**

> so now i'm officially a published fanfic author. nice. this fic is partially inspired by [stephanie's](https://rnyfh.tumblr.com/) wonderful patrochilles art, especially these: [x](https://rnyfh.tumblr.com/post/179185668798/patrochilles-doctorathlete-au-uploaded-again) [x](https://rnyfh.tumblr.com/post/169427614013/nn-patrochilles-modern-au) [x](https://rnyfh.tumblr.com/post/168187973123/im-like-wut)  
> thank you to my friend ause for proofreading ❤

Patroclus is sitting at his desk, chin propped up on one knee and the other leg stretched out. He’s staring at an inconspicuous hole in the wall, where a pin used to hold up a now long-gone picture, when his phone screen lights up. He’s not surprised to see that it’s a message from Achilles.

_ what u up to _

Patroclus sighs and squints at the mess of textbooks and notes on various pieces of paper that are currently crowding his desk. He bites his lip and picks up his phone, turning his swivel chair so that it faces away.

_ trying to study _

Achilles replies immediately.

_ oh ok _

_ can I come over? i can just read or smth while u study _

Patroclus spins himself around a few times. He gives his textbooks one last look before he makes his decision and types out a response. He knows that if Achilles comes over the likelihood of him studying is very low but, at this point, he’s not sure if he’d study even without the distraction.

-

“I come bearing gifts,” Achilles smiles as soon as Patroclus opens the door for him.

The smile is blinding. Luckily, Patroclus has had quite a few years to get used to it. Most of his life. So his breath doesn’t hitch and he easily grins back.

“It better not be a bag of fucking raisins.”

“Hm. Close,” says Achilles as he pulls a box of grapes out of his bag while he toes off his shoes.

“Those I will allow,” laughs Patroclus and takes the box from him. “I was thinking of making lunch. Are you hungry?”

Achilles rummages through his bag and takes out a paperback copy of ‘Wuthering Heights’. He smirks and waves it around.

“What about studying?”

Patroclus groans in response, which amuses Achilles even more, so he turns around and makes his way to the small kitchen.

“’Wuthering Heights’? You never cease to surprise me, Pelides.”

“Deidameia gave it to me,” admits Achilles as he plops down onto one of the kitchen stools. “Told me I should culture myself.”

“That makes sense,” laughs Patroclus, which quickly replaces Achilles’ mock-pout with a soft smile.

“So, what are we eating?”

“Either soup or,” Patroclus drags out the words as he opens the fridge and stares at its contents for a minute. “Nope, soup it is.”

“Sounds good. Do you want me to help?”

Patroclus turns around and looks at his friend for a second.

“No, that’s alright. You can chill. You could play some music though?”

-

They eat lunch (Achilles insists on doing the dishes) and then spend the afternoon lounging around and listening to music. They talk and they joke, as they usually do, and Patroclus forgets about the amount of studying he needs to do.

“It’s Saturday, Patroclus. You need your rest,” Achilles points out when Patroclus reluctantly brings it up.

It must be golden hour, thinks Patroclus, as he watches the rays of the setting sun stroke over Achilles’ face. The face that is currently looking concerned and Patroclus wants to lean over and smooth out Achilles’ brow. Instead he lightly kicks his friend’s leg and sighs.

“You’re right, you’re right…”

“You know that you’re going to be an amazing doctor, even if you stop to take care of yourself once in a while, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Achilles doesn’t look away and continues to frown. Patroclus stares back for a minute before he clears his throat.

“So… Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” Achilles finally smiles. “Oh, actually. What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

“Fuck, sorry, Patroclus. I have to go. Running,” Achilles gives him an apologetic smile as he gets up from the couch they were sprawled on.

“After all that lecturing about me taking a break, huh?” Patroclus teases.

“I take my breaks,” Achilles grins. “You should definitely watch a movie, though. But don’t watch anything too interesting without me.”

“You’re such a baby.”

Achilles sticks out his tongue before heading into the hallway, where he squeezes his feet into his shoes without undoing the laces.

“What time is Briseis coming back?” he asks.

“Soonish, why?”

“I’ll text her and let her know that you’re to be kept away from your books for the rest of today.”

“Ha-ha,” Patroclus mock laughs.

Achilles flashes him one last grin before he heads out.

“I like your nails, by the way.”

And then he’s gone leaving Patroclus to stare at his red painted nails and blush.

-

Patroclus hears Briseis’ keys jingling before she even unlocks the door.

“Honey, I’m home!” she says in a sing-song voice and Patroclus draws his legs, that were stretched on the couch, to his chest before she has the chance to sit on them.

Instead she collapses onto the couch and lays her head down on his now folded knees. Despite the cheeriness in her voice, he can tell she’s tired. Both Briseis and Patroclus work part-time at a nursing home. At first, they joined convinced that it would be valuable experience alongside their medicine studies, but soon they grew to care for the elderly residents. That doesn’t make the job easier, though. Patroclus knows what it feels like to work a nine-hour shift, so he doesn’t complain about Briseis cutting of the blood flow to his feet and instead strokes her hair.

“Did Achilles come over? He sent me a text,” she says absentmindedly.

Patroclus hums. “Yeah. He liked your nail polish, by the way.”

“Of course he did. Achilles has good taste.” Briseis turns her head up so that she can look at Patroclus and smirk.

“Stop.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.” The smile on her face says otherwise.

“We’re both too tired to have this conversation right now.”

“You’re no fun,” she huffs.

“Movie?” Patroclus asks. He can’t help but pout thinking how that has somehow become his go-to diversion to avoid topics he doesn’t want to discuss.

It’s a testament to how worn out Briseis must feel because she happily jumps at the idea and after Patroclus makes them both tea, they mindlessly watch some action flick. Well, Patroclus does as Briseis drifts off to sleep 10 minutes in.

-

Patroclus walks out of the building, where he sat the last exam of the year, and turns his face to the sky. He stops for a minute and shuts his eyes, basking in the afternoon sunlight. It’s much warmer outside compared to the air-conditioned university buildings so he shrugs out of his jacket and feels the tension slowly drain from his shoulders. Until suddenly someone lunges at him, knocking him out of his peaceful moment.

“You’ve done it!” shrieks a familiar voice directly into his ear.

“Fuck, Achilles!” swears Patroclus. Although, he makes no effort to break away from Achilles’ grip.

Achilles is still holding Patroclus in an embrace and he begins to manoeuvre them across campus. Patroclus laughs.

“Where are we going?”

“Celebrating. It’s a surprise, though,” Achilles mock whispers.

Soon enough they end up at a bus stop and so Patroclus just eyes his friend in hopes that he’ll crack and tell him where they’re going. He doesn’t have to, in the end, because a bus promptly arrives, and Achilles says: “That’s us.”

“We’re going to the beach?” asks Patroclus once they’re seated. “I was afraid you were going to drag me to a party.”

“Come on, man. I know you better than that.”

Patroclus smiles at that and rests his head against the window.

-

Apparently, the trip isn’t one of Achilles’ spontaneous whims. In fact, once they arrive, he leads the way and when he finds a spot he deems acceptable, Achilles unzips his bag and pulls out a blanket to sit on, sandwiches, fruit, some water, and a couple of beers.

“Well, this is romantic,” Patroclus jokes and then immediately wants to go drown himself in the sea.

But Achilles just laughs (of course he does, why wouldn’t he?) and sits down dragging Patroclus down by his hand as well.

“I’m just proud of you, you know? You’ve just finished your fourth year of med school! That’s insane!”

“Oh, um, thanks,” Patroclus rubs his arm feeling flustered. “I’m proud of you too.”

Achilles opens up the beer bottles and hands one to Patroclus.

“To our success and honour?” he asks as he raises his bottle.

“Shut up,” replies Patroclus but he’s smiling as he clinks his bottle with Achilles’ anyway.

After they’ve finished all of the food they lie down and just look at the sky for a while. The day is nice and warm but the beach isn’t too busy and Patroclus thinks he could easily fall asleep listening to the waves and Achilles breathing next to him but soon enough Achilles stands up and proclaims that he wants to stretch his legs and then he’s pulling Patroclus up with him and they pack everything back into Achilles’ bag before they set off walking alongside the waves.

At first, they walk slowly just drinking in the tranquillity around them but at some point Achilles pushes Patroclus making him stagger and he barely avoids falling into the sea, which leads to them both taking their shoes off and chasing each other around, kicking cold water at one another.

When they finally get on the bus to take them home, they’re both just a bit wet and definitely covered in sand. Patroclus has his pockets filled with small rocks he thought looked nice and Achilles looks a bit more sun-kissed than usual.

-

The sun has set by the time they’re back in the city. They slowly make their way home breathing in the warm air of late spring. A bird, probably confused by the street lights, determinedly chirps its song and Patroclus smiles thinking about how close summer is. It’s always been his favourite season. Perhaps because ever since they were little, Patroclus and Achilles would spend most of their time together in summer. There would be no distractions like school and the days were much longer than in winter. Things have changed since then, and now Patroclus has a job and an internship lined up and Achilles can’t take a break from training. But still, the fondness for summer is not something Patroclus thinks he will ever lose. Achilles knocks their shoulders together.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Summer,” Patroclus smiles. “It’s because of that bird.”

Achilles listens to the melody and turns around to try and spot the culprit. Which is when he trips and twists his ankle in a funny way.

“Fuck!” he exclaims as he hops on his other leg for a moment.

“Oh, shit. Achilles, are you okay?”

Patroclus is at his friend’s side in a heartbeat, hoisting Achilles’ arm over his shoulder and placing his own around Achilles’ waist.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Achilles tries to put weight on his injured ankle and winces, immediately stopping.

“Okay, do you think you can make it to my flat? We’re almost there, I’ll bandage it for you.”

Achilles doesn’t argue and leans against Patroclus. Somehow, they manage to reach Patroclus’ place without too much of a struggle, though, it was probably more tiring for Achilles than it was for Patroclus.

Once they go in, Patroclus quickly ushers Achilles onto his couch and leaves to retrieve his first aid kit. Soon he’s back and kneels at Achilles’ feet.

“This ointment should help relieve the pain and will hopefully minimise the swelling. We should probably ice it for a bit too.”

Achilles nods and lays his head down, baring his throat, and Patroclus stares for a moment.

“I’m so sorry, you should not be doing this on your first free evening,” groans Achilles.

“Don’t be stupid, you know I don’t mind.”

Patroclus then takes off Achilles’ shoes and starts massaging the pain-relief ointment onto the wounded ankle. He then gets up and goes into the kitchen, where he grabs a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, and then wraps them in a towel. He returns to Achilles and places the make-shift ice pack on his ankle.

“I’m going to make tea and then I’ll bandage your ankle, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you,” replies Achilles and for a minute he sounds like a child, so Patroclus leans over and brushes his Achilles’ hair away from his face. The gesture is gentle and intimate, and Patroclus catches himself and promptly turns around and rushes to the kitchen.

He makes tea while cursing himself because he really needs to reel his emotions in. At this point he’s used to the fact that he’s in love with his best friend but recently he keeps on slipping up and making it too obvious. And Achilles hasn’t said anything yet either because he hasn’t noticed since he can’t even imagine being with Patroclus in that way, or because he’s just pretending to not notice so that they wouldn’t need to have that conversation. Patroclus isn’t sure, which is worse. He resists the temptation to whack his head into the work surface and brings the tea back out into the living room.

He takes the frozen peas off of Achilles and begins to tightly bandage his ankle. Once he’s satisfied with his job, he gives Achilles a reassuring smile.

“There. We’ll take you to get an x-ray tomorrow. You can spend the night here.”

He then gets a pillow and a blanket for Achilles. He’s about to say goodnight and leave him to rest but Achilles grabs his hand.

“Patroclus.”

Achilles looks him in the eyes for a minute before he lets go off his hand. Patroclus bites his lip and can still feel the touch lingering on his skin.

“Goodnight, Achilles,” he says before he turns around and retreats into his bedroom, tea forgotten on the coffee table.

-

Patroclus wakes up and knows that’s it’s later than when he usually wakes up. He looks at his phone and sees that he was right since it’s 10 o’clock and, also, he finds a message from Briseis, which reads

_ we didn’t want to wake you so I took your boy to the ER _

Patroclus sighs and is about to call one of them when a flood of messages from Achilles comes through.

_ doc says it’s nothing serious, just a bit of a sprain _

_ gonna have to do some physio _

_ chiron’s PISSED OFF but it’s fine lol _

_ i should be ok and back on the track in 2 weeks or so _

_ so sorry for ruining yesterday _

_ please don’t worry and rest _

Patroclus lays his head back onto his pillow and looks at the ceiling for a bit. He can’t not worry. He picks up his phone again and calls Achilles.

“Hello?”

“What physio did you get prescribed?”

“Ultrasound, massages, and exercise. Patroclus, please don’t fuss, it’s really okay. Briseis can confirm. Do you want to talk to her?”

Patroclus can hear her grumble in the background.

“No, that’s okay. Where are you guys now?” he asks.

“In the cab, going to my place. I think Briseis is walking home from there? She is.”

“I’ll come over.”

“No, Patroclus, please. Go out, do something fun. You really don’t have to nurse me.”

“I won’t. Really. We can just hang out. It’s how I would’ve spent my day anyway. It will be the same but with less wrestling or running around.”

Achilles sounds like he’s about to protest again but Patroclus interrupts him with a quick “You can’t stop me, Pelides,” and hangs up.

It takes him about 20 minutes to get ready and then he’s running out the door and into the street. He bumps into Briseis on the way and draws her into a quick hug.

“Thanks for taking him to the hospital. Is his ankle really okay?”

“The doctors assured us both that it would heal in no time,” she says comfortingly. She then giggles. “I think they assumed we were dating.”

Patroclus rolls his eyes.

“And did you tell them he was an athlete?”

“Yes, Patroclus, of course. I’m not an idiot and neither is Achilles.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. Thank you for taking him,” Patroclus takes her hand and squeezes it.

“Good God, you’re sappy, Patroclus,” Briseis smiles at him. “Just go. I can tell you’re dying to see him.”

Patroclus hugs her again before he rushes off.

-

Patroclus finds Achilles’ door unlocked, so he walks in and quietly toes off his shoes. He sneaks into Achilles’ bedroom, where his friend is sitting on his bed and looking out the window, lost in thought. He’s about to say something loudly so as to startle him but Achilles suddenly turns around startling Patroclus instead.

“Ha! Thought you could sneak up on me? You wish,” and then he cackles dramatically.

“You’re impossible. Do you have supernatural hearing abilities or did you, perhaps, smell my presence?” Patroclus says as he sits down next to Achilles.

“Don’t say that, Patroclus. You don’t smell  _ that _ bad,” Achilles quips.

“Oh, thank you. It must be because I didn’t spend the last ten hours or so in your presence,” Patroclus retorts.

Achilles pouts for a moment and then they’re both grinning at each other.

“How’s your leg, by the way?” Patroclus asks.

“Patroclus, even with one damaged leg I can still forcefully make you leave, if you’re just going to fuss about me.”

“I’m asking as a friend, not a doctor,” he replies and raises his hands in mock-surrender.

Achilles narrows his eyes but answers anyway.

“It’s not too bad but I can’t really walk so we’re going to be stuck in my room for the day,” he subconsciously scratches the back of his head. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be doing something else? Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“I’m working the next few days, but I wanted to spend today with you. Sprained ankle or not.”

Patroclus puts his hand on Achilles’ and lightly squeezes. Achilles looks at their hands for a moment, then locks eyes with Patroclus and seems to be having a mental conversation Patroclus wishes he could be part of but then Achilles is leaning in and Patroclus instinctively turns his face so that they awkwardly brush their lips against each other’s cheeks. Achilles laughs, the sound low and pleasant, so close to Patroclus’ face. He then gently puts his fingers on Patroclus’ chin and presses their lips together.

The kiss is short and barely there but Patroclus can still feel it on his lips even when Achilles pulls away and looks at him with big brown hopeful eyes.

“Was that okay?” he asks.

Patroclus stares for a moment before nodding as he links their fingers together.

“More than okay.”

-

Patroclus comes back home after work one day to find Achilles painting his nails bright red while Briseis appears to be absentmindedly flicking through ‘Wuthering Heights’. Patroclus falls on the couch and groans.

“Rough day at work?” Achilles asks sympathetically.

Patroclus mumbles unintelligibly with his face buried in numerous cushions and Briseis snorts.

“I’ll make you tea,” Achilles says and goes to get up.

“No! You’ll ruin your nails!” Briseis protests.

“Are you going to make the tea then?” Achilles retorts.

Briseis snorts again and goes back to reading the book. Patroclus whines and rolls himself off the sofa.

“I’ll make it,” he grumbles before shuffling into the kitchen.

He’s waiting for the kettle to boil when Achilles comes in and wraps his arms around Patroclus, nosing the back of his neck.

“I missed you,” he says.

Not many things have changed between them since they started dating a few weeks ago but this is new. Being more affectionate, more physical. Patroclus loves it. He can’t imagine ever getting enough of it. He turns around and cuddles against Achilles.

“I missed you too.”


End file.
